Why doesn't Lemmy have a system like Reddit's Karma?

There's no real value to any of it.

Attach free beer to point levels and watch this thing explode.

6

It... does, though? I always go to my profile and check how my comments are doing before I sign off. Numbers go bigger make dopamine go brrrr.

5

You know, we kind of do have it and some apps will even let you know. But it's got a lot of flaws as everyone else has pointed out.

You know what I kind of want is a way to see karma by instance. What you're going to learn is that certain instances have rather extreme views (including the default lemmy.ml) and seeing how unpopular you are there while being popular elsewhere might actually make that feature more interesting.

Like, sure he's a -100 on LemmyGrad but he's a 200 on Sh.itjust.works; take that as you will. Lol

1

As others said it was a conscious decision of the developers, as it's gamification of the system and they aren't big fans of that.

I agree with this decision.

The Fluff Principle* makes easy-to-judge content get higher scores, and we do see it Lemmy. It isn't a big deal because fluff ends on its own specific comms, but once you gamify the aggregation of score points, the picture changes - now you're encouraging people to share content that they believe to score high over content that they believe to be contributive.

Additionally a publicly visible karma enables a bunch of poorly thought mod practices, like karma gating ("you need +500 karma to post here lol") or automatically banning people with low karma (even if it might come from a single post/comment).

*"Hence what I call the Fluff Principle: on a user-voted news site, the links that are easiest to judge will take over unless you take specific measures to prevent it." (Source)

12

By choice. The main developers don't like that kind of gamification, bragging, karma farming and the negative aspects that come with such things.

52

But it has other negative side effects if we scaled Lemmy up in scale.

For example, it doesn't matter if you downvote me if I called you a big stinky poo poo face. Because without a larger pool of karma to detract from, it doesn't matter HOW unpopular any singular post is.

......you big stinky poo poo face!

10
- I think that’s how it should be. We all say stupid things sometimes (or smart but unpopular things). Plus, if someone had a bad few months, it shouldn’t haunt them forever.
  
  Keep Lemmy karma-free!
  
  13
- Because without a larger pool of karma to detract from, it doesn't matter HOW unpopular any singular post is.
  
  Voting is there to sort posts and comments, not to rate a user. Having a larger pool of karma serves no purpose.
  
  10
- …you big stinky poo poo face!
  
  Well then damn it all; what more evidence do you need?!
  
  The poo-pooing alone is a court-martial offence!
  
  5
- Uı mın Reddit hæz ė mækſ impækt ðæt enı ƿu̇n poſt oṙ kȯment kæn hæv. Ȯbſtenſiblı æz æn æntı-brigeıdıŋ mejṙ b Uı'm luık 90% cṙ it ƿėz bikȯz v ð "Pride and Accomplishment" poſt frėm EA.
  
  spoiler
  
  I mean Reddit has a mac impact that any one post or comment can have. Obstensibly as an anti-brigading measure, but I'm like 90% sure it was because of the "Pride and Accomplishment" post from EA.
  
  1
- Thats a positive, if you've ever dare to voice an opinion against the reddit/lemmy.world hive mind.
  
  It doesn't matter if a hundred people hate you in a community, it affects nothing else in other communities.
  
  1

Sorry you got jumped on as a new user a bit.

The karma system on reddit encourages posting and reposting stuff that everyone has seen before to get fake internet points, and maybe what you win is a “more powerful account” for the algorithm instead of everyone getting a more or less equal voice.

You can still get people to follow you and build a tribe if you want without that, and you are also free to start any community you like, so a few mods don’t end up controlling all the online real estate and steer the conversation unfairly.

Plus its simpler. Sometimes simple is good.

34

It used to in the past. It was removed in the 0.19.0 release. This is the pull request that took it out (I think).

This thread has some of the reasoning for it, but at a high level the Lemmy devs made a call that the benefits a karma system provide didn't outweigh the problems a karma system can cause.

15

Why should it?

We can see all the negatives every day with reddit.

What positive does a Karma system bring to the platform and discussions?

23

Because when you see somebody with -1000 karma, it's a pretty good indicator that you shouldn't waste your time engaging with them.

5
- You can take a look at their post history and that will typically tell a lot more than a number next to their name
  
  19
- There were plenty of users with high karma that weren't worth engaging with too.
  
  It only helped with lbvious jerks that you could probably tell were terrible just by reading their post.
  
  6
- Usually you can get the same info just from looking at their last couple comments. Trolls don't usually very much.
  
  3
Eh, it could help discern trolls (like when a user has -2000 Karma, you know they have dogshit takes and shouldn't be interacted with) and could inspire actually insightful commentary (since it's usually the more ingenious comments that get upvotes). But on the other hand, there are definitely some big cons to having a Karma-like system.

2
- Honestly, a person's actual post history should be more relevant and indicative to whether they'renworth engaging with tham a single number.
  
  Furthermore, aside from deliberate trolls, most comments or posts should be assessed on their own merits, irrespective of the poster's history.
  
  People are complex, and it's possible that raving political idiots might have thoughtful opinions on their favourite video game or the aspects that make a perfect butt.
  
  5
- Many years ago on reddit, you could get given gold. It gave you paid benefits. My comments earned me literally years worth of gold, and my karma was similarly increasing.
  
  Then I came out as trans. Suddenly the gold stopped and my karma stagnated
  
  That kind of bias is built in to the karma system. It doesn't just punish shit takes, it also sidelines visible minorities
  
  3

So that you can ask stupid questions and not have repercussions hunt you til the days your account is deleted

27

I don’t care why, I just hope they never implement one.

7

mbin does.

shoutout https://moist.catsweat.com

16

It is by choice. Prominent developers made that choice because they thought it might eliminate a lot of the popularity incentives reddit creates.

Now I don't agree with that choice, but many others here do. I don't think this solves the incentive issues but just makes instances a bit more of a wild western and requires moderators to do more work figuring out what to make of an account.

Maybe it would be great if this is still an option you could turn on / off per instance or something.

5

I do miss the special updoots like gold and stuff. It was fun

3